Remembering the pre-Google web, when search was an experiment: “Most people have completely forgotten how chaotic it really was.”

Basically, it was as shit then as Google is currently. Actually, it was still slightly better; at least they acknowledged operator signs in the search (+, -, putting phrases in quotes, etc). Google doesn’t even do that anymore.

I think it was better solely for the fact that you wouldn’t get ads in your search results

Plus zero LLM slop everywhere.